Problematizing 'innovation' as a critical project

Based on research experience within US corporations, this paper examines the rhetoric and practices of organizational and technological 'innovation'. Our aim is to identify discourses of innovation as a site for critical studies. Two cases are used to illustrate ways in which initiatives launched in the name of change are based in traditional cultural frames that work in practice to conserve existing institutional orders. We close with some observations on alternative, indigenous sources of innovation and the conditions required to sustain them.